Dubai’s brand new US$3 billion (AED11 billion) Al Habtoor City project unveiled by the Al Habtoor Group last month will transform the city’s Business Bay and Dubai Water Canal area into a meetings and incentives ‘destination within a destination’, a local hotelier has claimed.

The entertainment and hospitality development, which will span 10 million square feet on Sheikh Zayed Road and involve an extension of the canal, which already runs into Business Bay, will lure big international meetings business, according to Rupprecht Queitsch, General Manager of the JW Marriott Marquis Dubai, which will boast 1,608 rooms in total when its second tower opens next year.

“The extension of the canal will take place outside our hotel and create a destination that is a dream for meeting planners,” he said. “With existing and new hotel inventory combined, meetings and entertainment facilities, plus the location, which is very close to the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre (DICEC), the area will become very important in terms of meetings business.”
Al Habtoor City is the first project to be built on Dubai Water Canal ‑ a multi‑billion-dirham project connecting the Business Bay area to the Arabian Gulf, which is scheduled to open in 2017.

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